Sweet Sixteen
by LadyUranus
Summary: Everyone's gone.. what can Harry do now but brood on the past?


Sweet Sixteen   
  
" Sixteen Years,  
Sixteen Prayers,   
Sixteen reasons why I care.  
Sixteen Tears,  
Sixteen still?  
Sweet Sixteen."  
  
~ Sweet Sixteen, Destiny's Child  
  
Part I - Who Says Sixteen Is Sweet?  
  
Harry didn't know how his birthday could have come so quickly. It was as if some huge gush of wind had blown and decided it would be July 31st. The school year had gone by so quickly- classes, exams, adventures, final defeat, and it was over. Everything had fallen into a pattern and then scrambled itself up again as summer had come.   
  
He looked over to his bedside table. His clock read Mercury by Jupiter, in other words midnight. It would be his first birthday in the wizarding world, but for all he knew his last birthday period. Voldemort's last attack had made it very clear to Harry he only had so long to live.   
  
He'd always been the "unlikely" hero since he was eleven. But the chances of him surviving were far more than unlikely this time. Sixteen and at the end of his string, that's me, Harry thought savagely. Not to say that becoming sixteen would be that bad, another year at Hogwart's was never that bad. But it seemed like everything had lost the excitement it first held, as though every little bit of magic had disappeared. Maybe it truly had, maybe Voldemort's dark magic had begun to spread.   
  
Part II  
  
Friends Forever  
  
" Your life is not determined by the throw of a dice, it is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."  
  
~ Thong, Reboot  
  
The night had been a long and restless sleep for Harry. Mostly due to the constant pain of his scar.  
  
All he wanted was to be normal! Well, maybe not normal, but a normal wizard at least. He wanted to have friends who didn't just like him for his glory, teachers who always were nice to him not just for his grades, and parents that were alive and well to take care of him. Sirius was better then living at the Dursley's, but it didn't mean he could replace his parents.  
  
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.   
  
"Harry," it was Sirius," I just got a letter for you."   
  
He sounded worried. Harry took it and read,  
  
Dear Mister Harry Potter,  
  
We are terribly sorry to inform you that your friend Ms. Hermione Granger, died 7/28/00.  
  
Dr. R. Betterman  
  
  
Part III  
  
Dark Dreams  
  
" Memento Mori."  
(Remember, we all must die.)  
  
~ Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy  
A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Book the Fifth  
  
Harry slammed the door closed after Sirius left, and once again found his bed. His unhappiness tossed him into a deep sleep.   
  
A dream came to him.  
  
He was walking through a crowded street, yet he was invisible to all around him. He turned, and went into a dark alleyway where there sat a small child. He was reminded of Hermione, except younger. He raised his wand at the frightened youngster,  
  
"Avada Kedavra."  
  
The sound of death, though Harry's dream self barely noticed it, swept over the small child. A cloaked man came out of the shadows. All Harry could see of him were two red eyes. Instantly Harry knew who he was. Yet he wasn't scared.  
  
"I am stronger then you are now."  
  
The figure nodded.  
  
"A new Dark Lord may have risen, Potter, but no one will know it's you under that cloak."  
  
Harry smiled,  
  
"That's all the better for me."  
  
Suddenly Harry awoke. Him? The next Dark lord? Voldemort's successor?  
  
He lied upon the bed once more.  
  
*******  
  
The dream continued to visit him, each night. And the day before he was going back to Hogwart's it came clearer, and longer, then ever.   
  
The Past- Part I  
  
Deadly- destructful, destructive, mortal, noxious, poisonous, virulment.  
  
~ Synonyms for "Deadly"  
  
  
Harry paced the room. With Dumbledore dead, how could he defeat Voldemort alone? But he had to try, he had to try for everyone that had died before him.   
  
******  
  
That night Harry went out to the grounds, his Firebolt 3003 under his arm. Before he could take off two people grabbed at his arms. For a second he panicked. Then one of them muttered   
  
"Lumos."  
  
Hermione's bright face sparkled in the darkness. The tiny amount of light she cast showed that Ron was next to her.  
  
"You've got to be crazy." Said Ron.   
  
Well, that was true, Harry thought, but how could I leave my friends in such danger?  
  
His gaze fell towards the ground as Hermione spoke,  
  
"I know you don't want us hurt, but we can't let you kill yourself either."  
  
Harry sighed.  
  
"Then come, but if anything happens…"  
  
Hermione looked into his eyes,  
  
"It won't, we could never get hurt."  
  
  
Part IV  
  
The Game Has Surely Passed  
  
"The Wonder ball goes round and round, to pass it quickly you are bound if you're the one to hold it last, the game for you has surely passed."  
  
~ Children's Song  
  
Harry awoke suddenly. The events of the past weeks flew back at him. He began to punch at his pillow, close to tears.   
  
"How could you take them away from me?" He screamed to no one.  
  
He let his tears free, wishing he hadn't let them come. His dream filled his head.  
  
It was wonderful compared to reality.  
  
The dream Harry turned around at the figure.   
  
"I have no reason to show my face, especially to a has-been like you."  
  
The cloaked figure took his wand out and murmured the curse no one dare spoke of. Green light swept over Harry. But he remained standing.   
  
"No curse can kill me. Even if I wanted to kill myself."  
  
The dream Harry swept away into a house near the alley. Two girls were huddled together in the corner. Both of them had red hair. They whimpered, knowing their. They were barely six years old, yet the dream Harry spoke the forbidden words without caring.  
  
******  
  
Harry stared at the wall. Could he ever be that evil? Did he really wish that? What did these dreams mean?  
  
  
  
The Past - Part II ( Part I)  
  
" Miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."  
~ Robert Frost, Walking Through The Woods On A Snowy Evening  
  
Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked silently through the Forbidden Forest. They could hear footsteps behind them, yet they didn't stop. Harry knew, from looking around at one moment, Ginny and Colin were trying to catch up with them. But through silent agreement they decided to ignore them, lest they ruin the plan of there's. What surprised them was the voices in front of them as they walked towards the camp.   
  
The woods echoed the footsteps of the trio and followers. Harry stopped. He turned around and went to Ginny and Colin. They looked at him. Harry returned the look sternly,  
  
"No."  
  
The two looked at Harry's eyes and knew that they had to stop him, yet something told them it was impossible.  
  
"Harry! NO! Please, don't do it! What if you are hurt? What if you....."  
  
Ginny began to cry. Harry wanted to comfort her, but he couldn't waste time. Colin, seeing Ginny's distress pulled out his wand,  
  
"Don't Harry. Or I will, I swear I will."  
  
Harry smiled,  
  
"Don't swear Colin, it's not polite."  
  
Colin continued to point his wand, he spoke the words,  
  
"Uncosiensi uma.."  
  
Hermione came up behind Harry,  
  
"Into duo."  
  
Her wand split halfway up, it was now pointing at both Ginny and Colin. Colin began the incantation again, but Hermione, being the smartest and a year older was faster.  
  
"Uncosiensi uma dans!"  
  
Both 5th years fell to the ground.   
  
Harry stopped dead. What had he gotten himself into? Hermione and Ron stopped too at his urging.   
  
"Too late, it's gone it won't come back."   
  
The words from the riddle in his fourth year resounded through Harry's head. He had almost lost his friends more then once, he wouldn't let them go now. Harry turned around, no longer wishing to complete the suicide mission he had embarked upon.  
  
Everywhere Harry looked they were surrounded.  
  
"Too late, it's gone, it won't come back. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back. Too late, it's gone, it won't come back. "  
  
Part V  
" What's comin' will come."  
~ Hagrid, Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire  
  
  
Harry stared at the objects in his hands... The first was a picture.  
  
"How could he have let you go?"   
  
He whispered softly to the old, bent glossy paper, upon which his best memories were printed. The photo depicted himself and his two best friends at Hogsmeade. They stood in front of a brick building, one that no longer stood. It was called "The Three Broomsticks." He remembered it often, not only because of this picture, but because he had learned about Sirius there.   
  
The memory of that brought tears to his eyes, trickling down his face to fall delicately on the photo's frayed edge. It reminded him…curse it for reminding him...of that day. In his minds eye he saw once again the blood, the blood which had dripped onto the dew-soaked ground. The girl from which the blood came from was strewn carelessly across the grass, her sapphire robe lying in beautiful folds around her body. From her side protruded an ornate sword, the same one which Harry had wielded once before. Remembering was like torture, but even his own tears forced the gruesome mental picture on him.   
  
The Past- Part II (Part II)  
  
" Come seek us where out voices sound,  
We cannot sing above the ground,  
And while you're searching, ponder this:  
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,  
An hour long you'll have to look,  
To recover what we took.  
But past an hour - the prospects black,  
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."  
~ Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire  
  
Surrounded.  
Harry could feel his heart beat, as though he held in his very hand. What had he gotten himself into? What kind of crazy game was he playing, thinking that he could defeat Voldemort and keep his friends safe at the same time?   
Without thought Harry took out his wand,   
" Expillamarius!"  
Crack. The wand fell into pieces, scattered all over the ground.   
A precession of black robed men walked into the circle which Harry stood in the center of, holding something covered with a cloth.   
They lifted the cloth.  
It was the sword of Godric Gryffindor he had received his second year. He could not let them have it. That sudden thought caused him to decide to grab it, though it was foolish.   
He ran out toward the men, prepared to grab the sword. Something blasted him back, bringing him crashing against a rock.   
He fell into darkness.  
He awoke later, and through bleary eyes he saw Hermione, impaled by the sword he had once held in his very hands. The one he had taken to protect the school… and his friends.  
" Impaled by your own sword, aye Lockhart?"   
~ Dumbledore, "Harry Potter and The Chamber Of Secrets"   



End file.
